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circus: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Circus (c) 1977 Exidy.

POP! POP! POP! Pop the balloons and score points. A wall of yellow, green and blue balloons will appear at the top of the screen. You must pop balloons by catching a clown on the teeter-totter and bouncing him up to the balloons.

- TECHNICAL -

Circus came in an upright dedicated cabinet, and may have also been available in a cocktail configuration as well. Circus machines had white sides with red painted sideart of several balloons in flight. The front of the machine was decorated with a large ornate monitor bezel that also doubled as a marquee (or nameplate), this bezel showed several clowns in a circus scene and had the game title spelled out with multicolored balloons. The control panel was unadorned, save for an analog spinner and a start button. The whole machine was finished off in black t-molding. Once inside the machine, you can see that it uses a black and white monitor with a colored overlay (to make the balloons have color).

Main CPU : M6502 (@ 705.562 Khz)

Sound Chips : Discrete circuitry

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 248 x 256 pixels

Screen refresh : 57.00 Hz

Palette colors : 2

Players : 2

Control : paddle

- TRIVIA -

Released in January 1977, Circus was one of the first games produced by Exidy that used a CPU (6502) to control the game logic instead of hand-crafted hard-coded logic circuits.

At least 13,000 units, possibly as many as 20,000, were produced.

A bootleg was made by Sub-Electro.

- SCORING -

Successful jump : 10 points

Popping Yellow Balloon : 20 points

Popping Green Balloon : 50 points

Popping Blue Balloon : 100 points

Bonus for Clearing Yellow Balloon Row : 200 points

Bonus for Clearing Green Balloon Row : 500 points

Bonus for Clearing Blue Balloon Row : 1,000 points plus free jump

- STAFF -

Designed and programmed by : Edward Valeau, Howell Ivey

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Atari 2600 (1978)

* Computers :

VTech Laser-VZ

Tandy Color Computer (1982, "Clowns & Balloons")

Commodore C64

Vic-20

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.30 [Mike Coates]

Samples required

NOTE:

- The original ROM images for Circus (c) 1977 Exidy have been made available for free, non-commercial use. Authorization from H.R. Kaufmann, president of Xidy.

WIP:

- 0.145u8: Tafoid changed description of clone 'Circus (Sub-Electro bootleg)' to 'Springboard (bootleg of Circus)'. Renamed (circusse) to (springbd). Comment: Thanks for GregF for pointing out the numerous sources which list "Springboard" as the game name and an obvious bootleg of circus (http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=2600&image=1).

- 0.145u1: hap tweaked layout in Circus.

- 0.141u3: hap improved interrupt handling: Circus generates them the same way as Ripcord (based on sprite-bg collision), Robot Bowl doesn't generate interrupts at all. Fixed invisible walls during the game and demo, lined up with the edges of the platforms where the guy. Fixed when you first time run a game your jumper float to the upper edge of screen.

- 7th November 2010: Twisty - New Circus Samples available. This was recently recorded from an authentic Circus machine by Jun Kitamura. Jun Kitamura: Hello. I recorded the sound effects of "circus" from game machine at "Natsukashi-Yokocyou" in Japan (http://homepage2.nifty.com/totochan/y-natsuyoko2.html).

- 0.129: MooglyGuy added savestate support to Circus.

- 0.126u4: Fabio Priuli added DIP locations for 'Circus / Acrobat TV'.

- 0.117u1: Changed description to 'Circus / Acrobat TV'.

- 0.113u1: Fixed rom names.

- 17th February 2007: Aaron Giles - I've got some exciting news. In addition to allowing the free distribution of Teeter Torture from this site, H. R. Kauffman, the president of Xidy, Inc. (formerly Exidy), has agreed to allow us to distribute many of the older released Exidy games here as well! So, over the next few weeks, we will be featuring many games from the Exidy lineup here on the site. The first of these is the classic game Circus, released in 1977. Look for more games to appear shortly. Ultimately, it would be awesome if some of the bigger companies would recognize the historical significance of some of their older titles and allow them to be enjoyed by a wider audience in this manner.

- 0.111u2: David Haywood added clone Circus (Sub-Electro bootleg).

- 12th February 2006: f205v dumped Circus (Sub-Electro bootleg). Update 20070301: f205v just found another blister with the same set of PROMs, but including also GFX PROMs, they are the same as in MAME.

- 0.94u2: Replaced DAC sound with Discrete.

- 0.69: Added new accurate samples. Derrick Renaud removed GAME_IMPERFECT_SOUND flag from Circus.

- 0.66: Added Samples sound (pop, miss and bounce.wav).

- 1st March 2003: Keith Wilkins and Derrick Renaud submitted a large update to the discrete sound system, adding discrete sound to Canyon Bomber, Polaris, Sprint, Sprint 2, Ultra Tank and samples to Circus, Clowns and Sea Wolf.

- 21st January 2003: Derrick Renaud adding sample sounds (that are not yet recorded) to the Circus, Clowns and Seawolf.

- 0.61: Added Artwork Overlay and changed palettesize from 33022 to 2 colors.

- 0.37b3: Changed palettesize from 254 to 33022 colors.

- 0.36RC2: Added 'Unknown' dipswitch.

- 0.36b4: Changed VSync to 57Hz.

- 0.35b6: Changed palettesize from 6 to 254 colors.

- 10th March 1999: Mike Balfour has changed Circus and Super Breakout to use the artwork functions instead of their own custom ones.

- 0.31: Proper overlay emulation in Circus [Zsolt Vasvari].

- 0.30: Mike Coates added Circus (Exidy 1977).

PLAY INSTRUCTIONS:

- Move empty side of spring board under man for continued play pop all blue balloons for bonus jump.

Recommended Games (Circus):

Cannonball

Circus

Clowns

Dead Eye

Gypsy Juggler

Space Walk

Kick

Wall Street

Circus Charlie

Cycle Mahbou

Plump Pop

Jumping Pop (Nics)

Angel Kids

Crazzy Clownz

Romset: 7 kb / 13 files / 5.72 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Circus / Acrobat TV</description>

<manufacturer>Exidy / Taito</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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